


Fallen Leaves

by amhrancas



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, NewS (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dark, M/M, old fic is old
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-23
Updated: 2011-10-23
Packaged: 2018-10-16 09:50:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10568820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amhrancas/pseuds/amhrancas
Summary: When death no longer holds sway over you you find yourself facing a life filled with passings and partings, an eternity of solitude. Occasionally you meet a person so enticing that you break your isolation. Someone you want to shelter and cherish. Someone you want to collect for forever.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [imifumei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imifumei/gifts).



> Written for the 2011 je_squickfic exchange for imifumei. Inspired by xxxHolic: A Midsummer Night's Dream. 
> 
> Multiple mentions of death, some descriptive gore.

_Himawari_

  
The biting winds shifted through the twisted alleyways in this quiet corner of Tokyo. It was not uncommon for even those who had lived in the neighborhood several years to get turned around on these streets but Masuda Takahisa had no such problems navigating them, himself having walked the side streets of Tokyo for a few millennia at the least. He shoved his gloved hands further into his coat’s pockets in an attempt to better block the wind’s effect.  
  
How much time had passed since he began this particular job Massu couldn’t even begin to fathom; he’d long-since stopped keeping track of the time. What he did know was that for a stretch of time he had been alive. He had been alive, and he had had a home and a family, but who they had been and what they had looked like he could no longer recall. Occasionally he would experience a faint, nostalgic feeling when witnessing the interactions of other families around him when he was out working; the way a mother would tuck a lock of hair behind her child’s ear before kissing them on the forehead, a father carrying his son on his shoulders so he could play with the autumn-colored leaves barely clinging to the trees. He liked to think though, that he would see flashes of them— _did he have his mother’s smile, or perhaps his father’s eyes?_ —whenever he caught his reflection in the mirror.  
  
No, he no longer remembered his family, but he was certain that he had been loved, and that he had loved in return. He had been happy during his time among the living. That much he was sure of. He had been happy, and most importantly he had not been alone.  
  
The solitude had always been the worst part of this line of work.  
  
Reaching the intersection he’d been seeking, Massu stepped back from the sparse pedestrian traffic and settled in at a tiny café off to the side. The name of the shop was Puzzle, and the way the small building had been wedged between and around the odd-shaped buildings next to it only made the moniker all the more appropriate. The waiter, a young man named Ryo who Massu had become familiar with over the past couple of years, casually approached the table and they made some small talk before getting down to the business of the day.  
  
After ordering a cup of tea he glanced over the front page of a newspaper abandoned by a previous patron before himself opting to abandon it in favor of simply observing those around him. It was, after all, the little intricacies of daily life which continued to fascinate him, even after being so far removed from it himself.  
  
A young couple was walking briskly down the street, faces flushed in what appeared to be a heated argument carried out in hushed voices between them. A patron of the small flower shop across the way from the café paused to play with a kitten which had set up residency behind one of the shops large planter-pots spilling over with chrysanthemums and sunflowers.  
  
Ryo moved effortlessly back and forth between the small kitchenette and the few crowded tables set up both outside and in. Massu could, by this point, tell just by watching Ryo which tables were regulars, and which were new to the café. Ryo had an awkwardly easy manner around those he was familiar with and while he could never really be described as “cool” he certainly appeared _and was_ more comfortable in his skin around these people. With strangers however, he would automatically close himself off, appearing almost confrontational and gruff as he felt out the situation and tried to decide the best course of action to take. It was fascinating watching the way this man functioned around them, or more appropriately, _ceased_ to function, suddenly swimming in insecurities not visible to the casual observer. Today though the café seemed to be full of people he knew, the atmosphere relaxed as a couple at one of the tables inside clearly made a joke at Ryo’s expense, judging from the way Ryo laughed while looking down at the floor while taking off his backwards facing baseball cap with both hands and putting it right back on.  
  
Around the far corner a young woman in a brilliant cobalt blue coat laughed as she swung her arm back and forth while holding hands with a little boy who Massu wagered to be around the age of five. He was animatedly explaining something to her and she was listening to him with rapt attention.  
  
Massu quietly paid his tab and rose from his seat at the table. Just then the small boy spotted the kitten and broke free from his hand-hold, darting forward into the street to cross over toward it. He never even saw the car turning too quickly from the alley into the same intersection, but the shrill screech of tires was indication enough that the driver of the car saw the boy; however it was not soon enough.  
  
In a flurry of motion and sound people came flying out of buildings from up and down the street, the driver of the car scrambling out of his seat, shaking and uncertain of what to do as he took in the sight of the little boy sitting up from over by the sidewalk, palms scraped and bloody but otherwise unharmed. Breathing a huge sigh of relief the driver started towards the boy before seeing that the child was scrambling back towards the road ahead of the car. Turning to face the street the driver froze. Lying in the road was the girl in the blue coat, on the collar of which a dark purple stain blossomed on one side, seeping further down into the fabric as blood continued to flow from the large split in her scalp, running down across the temporal region to behind her ear.  
  
The young boy pushed his way through the crowd as he cried and pulled on her hand, pleading in the chaos and clutter of voices surrounding them for his sister to get up, while hiccupping on his own sobs. She had been rolled over by someone, Massu noted, and was now lying on her back, her left arm lightly spasming on the ground while her eyes shifted back and forth randomly, unseeing. The waiter, Ryo, was now kneeling next to her, a towel from the café being used to try and staunch the blood flow while he barked directions into a cell phone. Massu assumed they were for whatever emergency assistance team would be arriving soon.  
  
_So this had been his sister,_ Massu thought as he looked down from within the mass of bodies, from the boy to the girl and back. Crouching down beside her he replayed the split second in his mind where she had run after the boy and shoved him away from the vehicle just in time to save him.  
  
“Thank you for loving him,” he murmured quietly as he reached down and ran his fingers softly down the young woman’s hair, warm from reflecting the sun’s light even in the chilly October breeze. The woman stilled, her body quiet as it lay there on the pavement, now as abandoned as the newspaper had been when Massu first sat down at the café.  
  
In the distance the faint wail of an ambulance could be heard, but at that moment everyone around them had quieted. The owner of the flower shop reached down and picked the boy up, hugging him tight to her as he continued to cry for his sister, her own eyes welling up with tears. Massu stood to leave, pulling his glove back on he noticed that Ryo was watching him, his expression unreadable. Stepping back, he held the stare for what seemed to be an eternity, keeping his face as neutral as he possibly could. It was as though the whole world had ceased motion around them, at least until the arrival of the paramedics stirred everyone back into action, and with that Massu slipped away unnoticed.  
  
  


_Code_

  
Contrary to a common popular opinion Death was not a single entity or force, but rather a number of different supernatural beings all with the ability to spare and snuff the flame of life. Any other being would have been there on that day back in October had Massu not been. Someone else would have tended to her soul just as easily he had. No, Massu had been there for one reason and one reason only: he had wanted to be near Ryo, and his occupation had provided a perfect opportunity for this. It had been decades—closer to a century, since he had last been so captivated by a living being. Since he had been so consumed with a desire to simply be _near_ another. When he was away from Ryo, the solitude of his existence consumed him as it seldom had before. It wasn’t that he was perfect, but rather that he had _become_ perfect over the time they had known each other.  
  
It had been three months since the day of the accident at the café, and Massu had initially stayed away from there for several weeks on purpose. Partly because he wanted to test his own feelings for Ryo, but also because he had needed to see how Ryo would, and had, processed everything that had happened on that day. He first walked back up to the café five weeks after the accident to be greeted warmly by the other man, genuinely happy to see him after such a long stretch. Massu couldn’t tell if Ryo had simply forgotten about the weird tension between them when he had released the girl’s soul or if he had elected to just not bring it up in conversation. Either way, Massu shortly returned to his semi-regular stops at Puzzle, including his stop there tonight before hitting the local supermarket. And now, as he pulled his muffler tighter to block against the winter chill, he juggled his grocery bags and headed back down the street towards his house.  
  
Technically, Massu no longer needed food, but he supposed that old habits died hard and assumed that he must have been quite the eater back when he was still living given his still-burgeoning passion for food. Plus, he had decided to stock up on several other essentials, given that he was anticipating company later that night, and for the foreseeable future. Shifting some of his bags over to one hand and setting a couple of others on the ground he fumbled with the antique gate half-hidden in the shrubbery lining the street, propping it open a bit as he brought the rest of his purchases in before locking it up again and heading up the winding brick walkway to the main entrance.  
  
The house itself was a hodgepodge of various architectural styles, Gothic, Romanesque, Mughal, Neo-classical, and Shingle among them. The ornate glasswork featured in several of the windows should have clashed against the stuccoed exteriors and jettied timber framing on other parts of the building, but rather they only added to the whimsy of the building. Nestled at the foot of two adjacent, low mountains and surrounded by a number of trees there was almost constant bird chatter and song around the house, one of Massu’s favorite charm points to the place.  
  
He had built the house over 300 years earlier, instilling within it the ability to both alter itself to his interests and desires, but also to those of the guests living inside of it. And while the people of the neighboring areas always watched the house with curiosity from afar, they never questioned it when every few generations Massu went through the motions of either re-purchasing or inheriting the estate all over again. After all, as his most recent neighbors said, who could possibly fit that bizarre house better than the eclectic young man with the interesting wardrobe and hair colors?  
  
Massu made his way through the great entrance with its four main staircases, all of which led to a walkway circling the room and nowhere else. Brilliantly colored light splashed across cold, marble tiles as the evening sun streaked through the west-facing stained-glass windows. Pausing to lay his house key on a table in the middle of the room Massu admired the way the brass seemed to glow red in the spill of colored light, highlighting the ornate coils and knot work on the handle before he hoisted up his purchases and continued through a side door and down a hallway modeled after the back alleys and canals of Venice, complete with a miniaturized version of the Ponte delle Guglie. He turned the corner at the end of the alley, the path changing to an elevated boardwalk winding through a setting reminiscent of the high-rise housing blocks seen in old movies of Hong Kong. After continuing through several twists and turns he stopped to slide open the red and black checkered paper doors on one of the tenements.  
  
Inside the room was a spacious and modern kitchen, complete with all the latest amenities and appliances; Massu liked to think of it as one of his greatest indulgences, and one which he felt no guilt whatsoever over. He began unpacking and storing the groceries, at the same time wondering if it was really necessary to purchase an extra 5 kilos of white rice and also if it would really be enough. Laughing at the absurdity of the situation he finished storing the remaining items before heading upstairs to change clothes and then prepare the guest room.  
  


_Ordinary_

  
Massu had known the moment he first saw Ryo the exact date, time, and manner in which the man was intended to die. He had also known that like any other death dealer before him he had two choices as to what he could in this situation. The first was to simply let Ryo continue to live out his life until the appointed time, and then fulfill his duty and release his soul form his body. The second, which was rarely chosen by those in their trade, was to wait until the appointed time and then intervene and stop the manner of death from occurring, thus resetting the person’s clock and allowing fate to deal them a new destiny. It wasn’t until Massu’s third chance encounter with Ryo that he knew for sure what he was going to do with the man, knew that he could do neither of these.  
  
And so he created option three, perfecting the sutras and spells he would need for it over the years leading up to the night that Ryo was supposed to die.  
  
The wreck that night had been a gruesome one according to all the headlines, even more so than any of the other accidents which occurred that night. The first day of February brought an unexpected, late night ice storm which dusted the streets of Tokyo with a fine layer of sleet and ice, leading to a record-setting number of accident-related injuries and deaths on the roads.  
  
Massu knew before he even saw him that his friend was already paralyzed from the waist down, but that did little to relieve the pain coursing through his body as his bike crushed further down on him each time the wreckage shifted around him. Massu made his way around the vehicles, releasing souls as he cleared every car, sixteen lives in total. No one was supposed to walk away from this one, the wasteful result of one man’s rushed hurry leading to a spinout on a near-empty highway.  
  
Not empty enough, Massu bitterly thought as he closed the eyes on the youngest child in the sedan, the family of four wiped out almost instantly. Finally he made his way to where Ryo was lying, crouching low to the ground next to him as he removed his friend’s helmet. Ryo was slowly gasping for air, eyes unseeing; every exhale triggering a weak cough which only brought up more blood than air.  
  
“Oh, Ryo,” Massu whispered as he set about inscribing the proper sutras and chanting the incantation for the ritual. In the distance he could hear the emergency response sirens coming closer and he knew that time was on his heels. Releasing a soul was one thing, _capturing_ a soul was a much more difficult challenge. Pulling off his gloves he reached into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a slender, alabaster vial. Massu removed the stopper and holding it over Ryo with one hand he reached down and laid the other over his eyes as he finished the incantation. In a sudden flash the vial began to glow a vivid white and he quickly sealed it and replaced it in his jacket. The blaze of red and blue lights broke through the darkness and Massu crouched low and held on tightly to his friend’s body, squeezing his eyes shut and firing off a second spell as rapidly as possible.  
  
Thirty seconds later when the first response unit approached the wreckage the two were nowhere to be found.  
Massu looked up blinking, expecting the voice of paramedics but hearing nothing other than the soft hum of electricity and air moving through his own house. Offering up a sigh and an offering of thanks to whatever deities were listening he double checked to make sure that the vial was still intact before moving Ryo’s body up onto the counter-top now doubling as a surgery table. Corporeal teleportation was something new for him all together and he had had no idea if it would have worked or not. Massu pulled up a cart loaded up with every herb, vial, and implement he would need for this and settled in for the arduous task of casting Ryo’s spine and legs back together.  
  
Twenty-six hours later and Massu was confident that while his body was broken, Ryo would certainly survive with little to no side effects outside of a lengthy healing process; provided, of course, that he ever woke up. Restoring the soul was the last step in the whole ritual, but after it was back in the body one could only wait, and hope, and tend to them until he woke. Resting his hand on the sleeping man’s brow he took in the warm feel of his skin against his fingertips. Inside this house, this property, he was able to live as a regular man. No more control over life and death with the touch of a hand. Here Ryo would be safe from him. He sighed as he traced the sallow yellowing and purple bruising spreading across his patient’s shoulders and torso, Massu glanced at the clock on the wall now that he was confident of Ryo’s status staying stable, it was definitely time for Massu to get a bath and some rest.  
  
Two weeks later Ryo woke up.  
  
At first he was confused as he looked around the unfamiliar room, and he was most certainly in pain, but after he saw a familiar face asleep in the chair on the other side of the room he decided that he could at least let the confusion part slide for now. The pain, not so much.  
  
“Hey, Massu,” Ryo tried to call out, managing only a pathetic croak instead. After attempting to clear his throat a couple times he tried again. “Oi, Masuda.” This time wasn’t much better, but it worked and that was really all that mattered Ryo decided. Massu had almost fallen out of the chair once it registered that Ryo was calling him. Ryo was _speaking_ to him. If Ryo hadn’t have been so medicated he might have even said the man cried a little, but as it was he really couldn’t trust his memory of it.  
  
“You know,” Ryo offered weakly a little while later as he looked around the room, simple and yet elegantly decorated in a tasteful fusion of traditional Japanese and Western styles, “I don’t think I ever actually asked what it is you do.”  
“Me? Nothing too exciting, I guess. I do freelance work in health management services. Mostly it’s just a lot of paperwork, the pay is good though,” Massu shrugged off the lesser details of his job, instead turning the conversation back to Ryo. “Hey, is there anything you want while you’re laid-up here? I can grab it for you and bring it to you.”  
“Really? Actually, since I’m just sitting around lately I’ve suddenly had a flood of song ideas hit me, I’d kill for one of my guitars,” Ryo brightened noticeably at the prospect of having his guitars back with him. “Oh, and a cigarette, too,” he half-jokingly added on, knowing full-well Massu’s opinion on his smoking. He was completely unprepared for the cigarette pack which dropped into his lap, followed by his old lighter.  
  
“I only request that you do not smoke inside the house,” Massu added with a dry smile. “I know you can’t really go very far right now, so I made sure your room had a patio.” He gestured towards the double doors on the far side of the room. Taking in Ryo’s still-incredulous expression he added “I figure we’ll tackle that habit once you’re back to feeling like yourself.”  
  
“Thank you,” Ryo softly added as he turned his deceased father’s lighter over and over in his hands, running his thumb across the faded kanji on its face. He swallowed back the rising urge to tear up. “for this, thank you. I really mean it. I thought I would never see it again.”  
  
“It’s nothing, really, we found your bag in the ditch a little way down from the wreckage,” Massu said as he checked the level of food left in Ryo’s dish. He had filled Ryo in on most of the details of the accident, conveniently leaving out that whole part about dying, and about his outlook for recovery: slow, but entirely workable. “How are you feeling right now? Are you ready for some more medicine?”  
  
Ryo thought about it for a minute, the realization of everything which had happened over the last two weeks settling in on him and he suddenly felt overwhelmingly tired, a dull throbbing starting to pulse through his body.  
  
“Yeah, I think so. I think I need to get some more sleep, too.” Massu agreed that that sounded like a good idea, and brought his medication over for him. After gathering up the rest of his stuff he headed out to leave.  
  
“Hey Ryo,” Massu leaned his head back into the room as he was closing the door behind him. Ryo glanced back up at him, already fighting the drowsiness of the medication. “I’m really glad you woke back up,” his eyes met Ryo’s and held for a second before Massu looked away again, a red flush creeping its way across his neck and face. “Life would have really sucked without you around.”  
  
Ryo snorted back a weak laugh and mumbled something about that being something he would say before finally drifting off to sleep. Shutting the door, Massu made his way with the food tray back up to the kitchen before heading back out to get Ryo’s things for him, nerves still wound up from making his pseudo-confession earlier.  
  


_Labyrinth_

  
Ryo loved exploring the house. Massu had explained to him while he was recuperating about the house’s nature to change and shift into different rooms and hallways, a seemingly eternal blending of gothic manses and Kyoto teahouses and every other style in-between. One of his favorite rooms had become the great library, a replica of the British Museum library he had been told. He’d stumbled upon it a week earlier and proceeded to spend the entire day engrossed in the books there until Massu had come to fetch him for dinner, and Ryo was now determined to track it down once again.  
  
Confident that he was finally on the right path Ryo sped through the buttressed cloisters on the way to the double-door at their far end. Flinging them open unceremoniously he stepped through them and froze in his tracks, the doors swinging silently closed behind him. This was definitely not the library. Rather, it was an opulent room that looked right out of an old Yoshiwara bordello, incense smoke drifting up through the air.  
  
“Where have you been, baby? I’ve been waiting here for so long. You never come to see me anymore,” a low and soft voice laughed out. Ryo’s mouth gaped open for a moment as he took in both his surroundings and the man in the room with him. “Stunning” was the only word which felt adequate to describe both. He was exactly like what Ryo would imagine one of the great _onnagata_ of the 17th century would have looked like sans makeup and affectations. And the way the man lounged across the length of that couch— long legs hanging over the arm at one end, hands extended above his head to drape over the other end, was sinful on a completely new level. He was wearing one of the most ornate kimono Ryo had ever seen, the obi loosely tied and slung so low on his hips that it barely managed to keep the man covered, generous amounts of gold-kissed skin exposed for anyone to see.  
  
“Oh, you’re new,” fox-eyes lit up as the man turned his head to face towards Ryo, languidly swinging his legs around in front of him and slowly standing, rolling the motion into something reminiscent of a giant cat stretching his muscles after a nap. He gracefully reached across to a small elevated dish and tapped out the ash and tobacco from a slender kiseru into the tray, one sleeve of the kimono falling down revealing a flawless expanse of toned shoulder and chest, a heavy and ornate brass key hanging from a chain around his neck. Ryo swallowed hard as he tried to piece together everything he was seeing. Finally remembering himself he stuttered out a quick apology.  
  
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize that someone else was here Mr.—,” he quickly turned his face away from the half-dressed figure, focusing instead on the painted silk screen in the corner of the room as his mind raced through everything Massu had mentioned to him about the house in the past two and a half months, quite positive that nowhere in there was any mention of a gorgeous feline-human hybrid such as the one standing behind him now.  
  
“Oh no, really, no worries at all, and you can just call me Kei, they all do,” the man replied reassuringly. “I never have guests so this is delightful. Do you plan on staying long?”  
  
“Well, honestly I don’t know—” Ryo started to reply before the other man cut him off.  
  
“Because let me let you in on a little secret,” the man offered in a lilting voice as he approached Ryo setting his long hand on the shorter man’s shoulder and turning him around to face him before continuing in a low and monotone voice. “Everybody dies here.”  
  
Ryo yelped at the sudden change before him as the stunning actor’s face began melting, the flesh falling off both it and the hand still on his shoulder. The expression revealed beneath the layers of flesh and bone twisting into a hollow grimace. He jumped, batting frantically at the hand and backing into the wall of the room before noticing that it too was now flowing with blood. Bright splotches of red began spreading across the delicate patterns on the Kimono as viscera spilling out from inside it, the man lurching forward Ryo.  
  
A strangled shout broke free of him as Ryo shoved the bloody figure away, making a fast break for the entrance to the room. A wailing cry followed him outside something Ryo could have sworn was pleading “don’t leave me here alone,” but he honestly wasn’t going to take the time to figure it out. Air scorched through his lungs as he gasped for more while sprinting through the various rooms, some familiar, others new, none of them where they had been before, all of their colors and changes blurring together in his need to just get the fuck out of there.  
  
Ryo slammed into a large wooden door, fingers scrambling at the latch in desperate attempts to open it, his heart pounding faster and faster. He could swear that the lamentful wail was getting louder and louder. Finally the latch gave and the door swung open into nothing, gravity grabbing full hold of Ryo and pulling him down through the dark as continued to fall until he remembered nothing, waking with a jolt in his own bed.  
  
“Christ, not again,” he muttered into the dark and shaking a bit, he rolled over to look at the time. 4:26, still too early to get up. He rolled back onto his back, unable to remember anything from the dream outside of the sensation of falling. Over and over he asked himself what it was that had terrified him so every time being unable to answer the question. What Ryo _did_ know, however, was that this night marked the 40th night he had experienced them since he had unofficially moved into this crazy house that never changed.  
  
After laying there in bed for ten more minutes trying to will himself back to sleep Ryo finally gave up, deciding that coffee was going to be a must-have for today. He picked up an old and faded t-shirt off the top of the laundry pile and pulled it over his as he shuffled his way over to the door, swinging it inward so that the bloodstained exterior could be seen.  
  
“What the hell?” Ryo jumped back, heart suddenly racing as he darted his eyes back and forth through the room and out into the hallway. The entire upper half of the door was streaked with blood as though it had been applied with hands dipped in paint, the thinner patches already drying and flaking. Cautiously approaching Ryo began to smell the faint metallic tang wafting off of it. He hesitantly lifted his hand up to the door and hovered his fingers over one of the dried smears before gingerly touching it.  
  
And then it was gone.  
  
“Wha—?” Ryo frowned at the bare expanse of wood before him, pressing his palms against the planes before double-checking the other side. As little sense as it made to have had the blood there in the first place, it made even less to have hallucinated it at all, which was exactly what Ryo was beginning to think had happened. Either way, this was certainly new.  
  


_Stars_

  
The dreams hadn’t occurred at all the first 2 months he’d been there, instead starting up in April after he had been deemed “fit enough to get off your ass and be productive” by his ever-so gracious host. Since then Ryo had learned a good deal more about the man he had once only thought of as a customer, and then friend. What would he call Massu now if he had to pick a label? Ryo wasn’t really sure. Possibly family? He mused to himself later that week. He had certainly earned that title after nursing Ryo back to health and giving him a free place to stay, more than anything though he had earned it for putting up with all of Ryo’s moody tantrums on that same road. But for some reason something about calling Massu family didn’t settle right with Ryo.  
  
The truth of it all was that Ryo felt safe around Massu. The hallucinations had continued to occur ever since the day with the door. They weren’t anything overly elaborate and they never lasted more than a matter of seconds, but they were always enough to make Ryo question his bearings. More importantly though, they never happened when Massu was there, and those nights when they had fallen asleep together watching old movies or listening to Ryo’s record collection, there were never any dreams. When he was with Massu there was peace.  
  
Maybe he was simply meant to be here with him.  
  
Walking through the hallways leading back to the room Ryo had turned into a makeshift studio, Ryo paused as he noticed the glint of brass winking out from behind the stand of bamboo lining the walkway. Curious, he reached through the trees and tried the doorknob, surprised that it gave so easily, the hidden door swinging inward to the new room. He pushed his way past the towering stalks and into the room, staring at the richness of the gardens there. High ceilings allowed for several species of ornamental trees to fill the perimeter of the space, a lush green carpet flowing across undulations as though it were a landscaped lawn. On the expanse of the far wall a brilliant mosaic stretched both below and above one of the most breathtaking glass etchings Ryo had ever seen, a mixture of nature, modernist elements, and several renderings of a series of faces, all of which make Ryo freeze with an unexplained anxiety.  
  
Walking the length of the piece he counted the images, realizing that there were actually only four faces represented there, each image capturing a different aspect or expression of the men. Ryo didn’t turn around when he heard the door open behind him, he knew it was only Massu this time.  
  
“This figure, this person, I know him. Don’t I?” Ryo asked after Massu had joined him at the wall.  
  
“Do you?” He asked, peering at the etched glass and then back to Ryo, brows raised quizzically. “But from where, do you suppose?”  
  
“I’m not really sure,” he said, running his fingers lightly down the ridges making up the face of the man in the glass, sharp cheekbones and expressionless eyes. “He just seems so familiar to me. All of them do, actually,” he added, gesturing down the line of faces staring out of the delicate etching.  
  
“That is odd,” Massu mused. “Supposedly all of the artwork here is of people who lived here at some point in the past, though I believe aside from you and I no one has been in this house for several generations. Maybe you recognize him from another work in the house?” Massu cautiously suggested as he propped his arm up on Ryo’s shoulder, resting his chin on it so that he could better study the image from Ryo’s perspective. “His face _is_ quite striking.”  
  
“I guess that’s possible, but it seems so much more vivid than that? Maybe from a dream then? I read on the internet once that every face we see registers in our brain whether we remember it or not, and then when we dream we see those faces.”  
  
“And have you been having dreams then, Ryo?” Massu asked quietly, still looking at the portrait, his heart clenching with fear that something was wrong, that Ryo was being made unhappy by staying here with him.  
  
Ryo continued to trace the ridges of glass, slowly running his thumb across the lines of the figure’s lower lip. “I just—I feel like I should know this, I _know_ that I know this—” his words cut off as he drew in a sharp breath, jerking his hand back from the glass to see a fine line of blood blossoming across the pad of the finger. “Ouch,” he nervously laughed as he instinctively sucked the blood off his thumb, looking back up at the small stain of red on the glass, the only evidence that the jagged patch on the glass even existed. “That was stupid.”  
  
“Tsk. Look what you’ve done now,” Massu softly chided, taking the other’s injured hand and leading him away from the wall, resolving to move that piece as soon as he was free to do so. “Come on now, let’s get you patched up. And no more dwelling on things from dreams. That’s how people get hurt, Ryo.”  
  
This was very strange indeed, Massu worried later that evening, long after Ryo had retreated to his own room. Why was Yamashita appearing in Ryo’s dreams, and had he seen anyone else? Returning to the room behind the bamboo he wasted no time in removing all evidence that the door had ever once been there, relocating the room within the house entirely. Inside, he thoughtfully approached the ornate mosaic, running his fingers along the tesserae beneath the panel of etched glass before stopping to press a small pink tile under the first face on the wall, mischievous eyes flashing out at him.  
  
The lights in the room dimmed as the air shimmered before shifting into the image of a man with golden-brown hair a touch too long to match the Western styled Meiji era clothing he was wearing. His loose dress shirt was gradually pulling free of his waistband as he continued the series of lifts he deftly performed with a soccer ball. The series lasted for almost five minutes, an errant breeze casting a rain of sakura petals through the air and into his hair causing the young man to laugh playfully. Finishing the lifts he kicked the ball up into his hands as he turned to face Massu, dazzling smile splitting across his face.  
  
“Hey, Massu!” He sauntered across the room towards the wall, “You know what, I was thinking that we should have a party, it’s been ages since we threw one, hasn’t it?” The young man beamed at Massu as he reached up with his free hand to run it playfully through his red hair.  
  
“Oh, Tegoshi,” Massu whispered to himself, raising his own hand to run it through the other’s hair. “I miss you so much some days. I promise I'll visit you more often.” He closed his eyes as a stray tear escaped them, his hand passing through nothing but the air as he was once again alone in the room.  
  


_Stardust_

  
Ryo lay sprawled out on a portion of the roof of the house, skin soaking up the oppressive summer sun as sweat dripped off of his body. As much as Ryo appreciated the climate-controlled paradise within the walls of the house, some days he just needed to revel in the extremes or nature. After a day jammed with writers block and flash attacks to rival the worst of lighting storms Ryo decided that a time out could do him some good.  
  
Those were the latest in the series of hallucinations. Ryo would suddenly be blinded by brilliant flashes of light, a low cracking and mild sense of annoyance accompanying them. Though unlike the others these seemed more persistent, more nagging, and they always left a lingering stench of magnesium and potassium chlorate. After tracking down what exactly he had been smelling Ryo was able to identify the source as flash powder, the kind used throughout the early half of the last century. Flash powder, Ryo had laughed. At least it was better that blood covered doors and blood-curdling screams.  
  
Stretching, Ryo pulled himself up into a sitting position. He liked coming up to the roof, the mountains rising behind him and the city skyline reaching out for what seemed to be eternity before him. With all the gardens, courtyards, and even the hot springs that Ryo had discovered in his ventures exploring Massu’s house, none of them were as calming to Ryo as the narrow widow’s walk atop the east wing.  
  
He knew it wasn’t right, that it wasn’t normal what was happening to him here. How long had it been since he had seen another person outside of the two of them? Since February? Ryo counted the months back. It had been four and a half months since the accident, the day where he had almost died. And yet every time he felt the urge to leave the house, to go back out into the city, it would vanish just as quickly as it came, replaced by the thought of Massu’s calming presence. More and more Ryo was finding his thoughts occupied by the man, and lately those thoughts were becoming less and less innocent in nature. When he wasn’t finding himself waking suddenly in the night from nightmares he was waking instead reaching for that pouting mouth, his body aching everywhere with want. _Those_ dreams he remembered every detail of.  
  
As if on cue the man occupying his thoughts entered the front yard through the gate. He looked tired, running his hands through his hair as he made his way up the front walk, removing his outer shirt in the heat revealing sun-kissed arms and shoulders framed by a basic white tank top. A small mole was barely visible on the rise of his shoulder. It was driving Ryo crazy.  
  
“Shit,” Ryo thought with a mixture of humor and frustration. He was so far gone over the man he couldn’t even begin to pin down when he crossed the line form friendship into love. Ryo could no sooner leave this house— leave Massu, than he could take his own life. Rising up from his cross-legged position of the roof he hollered and waved down to him as he approached the front door. Things had definitely changed between them he realized. Or maybe, Ryo mused, he had just changed, as it had been pretty obvious for a while how Massu felt about him.  
  


_Forever_

  
Waking once again, shaking with fear and hollow from what he had seen Ryo lay in his bed, terrified to move, to audibly breathe until he was sure that he was alone in the room. This one had been worse than the others. As with the others he couldn’t remember what had happened, he just knew that he felt completely shattered and gutted inside. Shattered, and desperate with need.  
  
Flinging off the covers of his bed he all but ripped the door off its hinges as he made his way through the hallways with one location fixed in his mind. He had only been to Massu’s room a handful of times during his time there, but its location was burned within his mind. He didn’t even bother to knock when he reached the large mahogany door, simply opening it and storming into the room.  
  
Massu looked up from the book he had been reading in bed, startled at the sudden intrusion. Ryo was standing there, dressed only in a loose pair of pajama pants, his hair tousseled from what appeared to be an unpleasant sleep. Massu’s eyes moved from his hair, down the naked spread of torso to his bare feet and back up, clocking the intensity rolling off of him, making Massu’s own blood heat within his skin. _Ah_ , he thought, _it’s now then, isn’t it?_ , his mind was suddenly a whirl of emotion and concern. Obviously Ryo was upset about something and Massu wanted to help him, to heal him. But Ryo was also _here_ , looking at him with a heat and intensity Massu had only dreamed of seeing from him. His own heart close to racing he tossed his book onto the bed table and met Ryo’s stare with his own. To hell with issues, he could work on those tomorrow.  
  
“Ryo,” he invited, and it took little else before they were at each other.  
  
Fingers tangled in his hair as hot breath pulsed against his neck, his ear; lips muttering nonsense words along them as Ryo pulled him closer and tighter, rising to straddle Massu’s lap while he both pushed and pulled at his shirt with his free hand before finally yanking down on the neck of it; exposing his shoulder. Massu shuddered as Ryo dragged his teeth down his jaw line then back along his clavicle, rough lips and hot breath buffering the sharp sensation. His breath hitched as Ryo’s fingers tightened in his hair, his hips pressing tight against Massu as Ryo traced his tongue the rise of the trapezius before finally biting down over that teasing mole. Massu hissed; the groan he followed with more animalistic than human, and he fisted his own hands into Ryo’s hair.  
  
Bucking up he threw their balance off and reversed their positions, sprawling over Ryo’s body as he worked his own mouth down his throat and chest before raising himelf up enough to stare into Ryo’s eyes, his own eyes so filled with black that they seemed no longer human. Pushing his palm flat against the center of Ryo’s chest he held him flat with the pressure alone.  
  
“This is mine. Mine to keep.” Massu’s eyes were fierce as they held Ryo’s, almost burning from within with the sudden intensity of the demand. “Say it.”  
  
Ryo took a long shuddering breath as he held Massu’s stare for a number of beats before nodding once while maintaining eye-contact. Massu smirked and ground himself down against Ryo’s hard length, the rough friction causing Ryo’s eyes to flutter closed on a hiss, his short, jagged nails dragging down Massu’s arm as he groaned out a low obscenity.  
  
“Say it.” Massu demanded again, this time flexing his fingers just enough that his own manicured nails bit into Ryo’s skin, the fire behind his eyes taking on an almost desperate edge. Ryo opened his eyes and stared back before giving a short nod.  
  
“Yours,” Ryo’s voice was raspy, throat raw from the raging heat surging beneath his skin. “To keep.”  
  
Massu seemed to freeze for a moment, as though the words didn’t quite register at first, before jerking Ryo back up towards him and crashing his mouth down on his, teeth scraping against teeth as Ryo opened up for him, both of them taking and yielding in turns while fighting to remove their remaining clothes without separating. Massu pressed his hand across Ryo’s abdomen, moving it lower across the concavity of muscle and beneath the waistband of his pants before finally roughly grabbing a hold of him and slowly pulling up with a firm stroke.  
  
“Jesus Christ,” Ryo groaned against Massu’s mouth at the sensation. Smiling, Massu raked his upper teeth across the inside of Ryo’s lower lip before lightly biting down on its fullness and slowly pulling back, pumping his hand over Ryo again before releasing his teeth’s hold.  
  
“Forever,” he whispered before Ryo pulled him back, reclaiming his mouth. “Yours forever.”  
  


_Why?_

  
Ryo had said that the nightmares had stopped but Massu knew better, he had simply stopped talking about them. In this house of ever-changing walls and passageways a wall had been built between them and there was no way that Massu would be able to break it down. Even his presence could no longer ward off the dreams for Ryo. It had been two years since the accident at the café, almost to the day.  
  
He still came to Ryo every night when he finished making his rounds of the house and Ryo had never once turned him away, but he no longer turned to Massu on his own. Instead Ryo would occupy himself during the day composing new songs and writing; scores of notebooks littered the shelves of the studio now, all of them filled from front to back with his work and sometimes his sketches. Only once had Massu dared to look inside one of them while Ryo was sleeping, raptly flipping through the melodies and lyrics on the lines only to turn the page to see dark and mocking eyes staring back at him, a mischievous smirk tugging at the mouth on the paper as his hand reached out towards the edge of the page. _Shige_. Massu blanched at the realization of what Ryo had to know. He quickly shut the book and replaced it, resolving never to speak of it to Ryo unless he brought it up first, hoping desperately that he was wrong about it.  
  
He knew though, it was ending. He had known this day would come from the moment he had decided that he needed Ryo in his life, it broke his heart that he hadn’t been able to make it work out otherwise. Was it even possible for him to continue on without him? Without _them?_  
  
“Hey, do you want to take a walk to the store? I need to get out of this house for a while.” Massu flopped down on the couch opposite where Ryo had been working out a bridge for a song for the past two hours.  
  
“Really?” Ryo stopped mid-chord and stared, “I mean, you want me to go with you? _Outside_ outside with you?”  
  
“Of course I do, Ryo,” Massu smiled softly at him as he set aside the guitar. “Being with you has always been one of my greatest joys, even if it’s only from knowing that you’re in the house with me.”  
  
Ryo smiled back and jumped up off the couch, quickly making his way to the stairs. “I just need to go grab my coat and shoes, ok?”  
  
“Sure. Hey—while you’re up there, can you grab the house key off my desk for me? I must have left it up there,” Massu hollered after him as he turned out the pockets of his parka to reveal nothing.  
  
They never stayed. They would promise forever, pledge their hearts and eternity to him, at least until they realized what eternity really meant. Realized _what_ it was that _he_ was. That was how it always worked.  
  
Massu drew his lips firmly into a line as he opened the door and drew his coat tighter around his chest on the walk down to the gate. He turned back to watch Ryo as he followed behind and closed the door, double checking to make sure it was locked before sliding the key into his pocket, sunlight dancing on the intricate brass for a moment before disappearing from sight.  
  
Massu moved to reach out towards Ryo, hesitating as the other stopped to kick around some dead leaves blown across the walk, beat-up Chucks grinding the mass of decay into the aged brick before the residue was covered up by newly falling leaves.  
  
Finally Ryo looked up, meeting Massu’s eyes with his own, a flat uncertainty written in the stare. Massu shoved his hands into the coat’s deep pockets, fisting them tightly so that his nails bit into the flesh on his palms—the physical pain checking the sudden tears welling behind his eyes, the vice clamping down on his heart. It was ok, he told himself. It was all going to work out as it should.  
  
Drawing in a deep breath of the crisp autumn air Massu flashed a bright and blinding smile at Ryo, the other man relaxing visibly at it and laughing a little at his own awkwardness as he walked up and through the gates to join him, a sudden blast of music from a passing car cutting through the sounds of pedestrian traffic on the street.  
  
Yes. It was all going to work out. Massu repeated the thought to himself as he reached out his bare hand for Ryo’s.  
  
  
  
No one ever stayed anyway.

 

 


End file.
